84 Spaces Contest - Judging round 1 proposal

The current proposal for judging the games in the 84 contest is the following.
There are three groups, which I made somewhat randomly, except that persons that
submitted two games have their games in different groups.

You can sign up for judging. Each group will have a chairman with some additional
tasks, overseeing the judging in the group.

You cannot sign up for judging a group in which you have a game, or a close friend or
family member of you has a game.

You are requested to do the judgment in a fair way:
give notes to the games with respect to your opinion how good the game is, with better
notes to better games. People who are caught cheating the contest by the way they judge
may be denied participation of future contests of this website, and/or their game may
be disqualified for this contest.

Please email the editors of this website if you want to participate in judging, and if so,
what group. Perhaps, try a few games already during the coming holidays?

Testing games can be done: using over-the-board play with friends and family members,
using Zillions of Games, by email with other judges, by email with the inventor, etc.

Each group of judges selects four games, which will go to the finals.
Questions and remarks via the feedback system.

Objections?

In order to speed up the process, please only object to this system if you have serious objections,
and think the current system is seriously unfair. If there are enough serious objections to the system
proposed here, we'll revert to plan B, and ask one or two judges who will do all the judgement.

Does anyone have image files for the Excelsior ZRF? They are missing from the zip on the Excelsior page. I have ZRF's for evwery other game in Group A and it might put the game at an unfair disadvantage in the judging, since I have used Zillions for playtesting all the other games.

The question about which criteria to use for judging the contest has
been raised by myself in the past, with no response given to my
queries. While I am not a judge in this contest, I would like to give
my two cents worth about criteria. Everyone is welcome to agree or
disagree with my suggestions as they see fit.
<p>What I am not going to do is suggest which of the following criteria
that I feel should be used to evaluate games in this contest should
be more or less influencial than others. That is for each person to
decide for themselves. Nor am I going to try to suggest that some kind
of elaborate point scoring scale be devised that can create some kind
of scientific ranking of games. That is not to say that such scales
can't be helpful, but if such scales are going to be used, each judge
should be free to decide for himself how much weight certain criteria
be given and how to award points for games for themselves without
outside influence. Come up with your own system that you think is fair
and stick with it.
<p>I hope that others will give their input about criteria
they think should be used in judging this contest.
<p>
<p>Originality and creativity should of course be rewarded. But exactly
what one means by that can be interpretted broadly. It can mean the
inclusion of new board shapes and the use of new pieces, but this
isn't meant to say that games with new boards and new pieces should
always be weighed more favorably with traditional square and rectangular
boards and conventional pieces. Interesting rules should also be a
plus. New ways to win, new ways to capture, new ways to move should be
viewed as positive.
<p>Here's one that some of you may disagree with. I would tend to favor
games which have the traditional 'feel' of chess. What exactly do I
mean by this? If one is quite adept and familiar with playing good
old fashioned orthodox chess, then one already has a good feel for
positional play (controlling space, controlling files, creating good
pawn formations, etc) and tactics. There are some chess variants
which have the 'feel' of regular chess, where once you start playing
you find yourself again thinking about positional play and tactics.
Can this be said of any game? Not necessarily. Games which use pieces
with traditional pieces (kings, queens, rooks, bishops, knights and
pawns) or pieces which only slighly augment the powers of these pieces
(look at the use of squires, viceroys, crowned knights and crabs in
some of my variants) will usually have that immediate 'feel' of
regular chess that games with mostly new pieces will not. This is going
to be a matter of personal taste among judges. Some will prefer
more traditional chess-like games and some will be inspired by brand
new types of CVs.
<p>Certainly one criteria which should be used is the ability to
understand the rules and strategy of the game more easily.
More complicated games which are confusing or hard to learn
would in my opinion be downgraded. I just don't have the patience
to sit down and try to understand complicated games, or at least
not ones that don't use traditional chess pieces.
<p>There are some other minor concerns to be addressed,
such as piece imbalance. Are there pieces in the game which seem
overly weak or overly strong compared to the dimensions of the board?
And also as a matter of personal taste some judges may want to
downgrade games which seem so complicated, or the spaces between
the opposing armies at the start of the game so far apart that
it takes longer to complete a single game than other CVs in the
contest. However if one finds that they are enjoying the challenge
of the game in a long middle-game sequence then such criticism can
be overlooked.
<p>Finally, while I don't mean to suggest that this should be a major
factor in determining grades and scores for games, in the event that
a judge feels that two or more games in his group are tied
and he is finding it difficult deciding how to break the tie,
I would suggest to reward games whose creators made themselves
accessable to play-testing than those who did not, for these creators
have the best interest of the contest at heart.
<p>

I'm having fun judging in Group (B). I playtested each one once, and there
were other more technical scores (creativity, concept etc). Right now, 5
have passed to a form of 'second phase'. I've prepared (somewhat crude)
boards and sets and am playing matches to select the best (very hard). I
hope that by the time the judges have to deliver their votes I've had time
and ways to pick winners, but right now all five have been equally
entertaining.
So I ask the organizers, do you want the judges to use any specific
criteria? How many will be picked for the next phase? The judges will give
notes to all or just vote a number of choices? Thanks.